Patent lawsuit: “majority” of Seagate, WD drives infringing

Two of the biggest hard drive manufacturers in the US were targeted with a …

Rembrandt IP Management is "focused on attaining fair value for infringed patents," and it thinks it has two winning patents on its hands that could affect the entire US hard drive industry. Rembrandt today filed suit against both Seagate and Western Digital in federal court, alleging that most of their hard drives violate a pair of patents Rembrandt purchased from inventor Uri Cohen.

Western Digital and Seagate make a host of branded hard-drives and hard-drive based products. Rembrandt's chairman, Dr. Paul Schneck, tells Ars that the alleged patent infringement affects "the majority of their products." Indeed, the complaints name Seagate's Free Agent, Replica, Black Armor, Expansion, Barracuda, Momentus, Savvio, Cheetah, Constellation, Pipeline, DB35, and SV35 disk drives. Western Digital's products include the company's popular My Book line, along with Elements, ShareSpace, My Passport, RE3, Caviar, and Scorpio.

Taken together, that's a lot of hard drives. While Schneck can't say yet what Rembrandt will want in damages, he does mention that the US hard drive market is around $12 billion a year and that Seagate and Western Digital have "a sizable piece of that market." Rembrandt wants a "reasonable royalty" to cover the use of its tech.

The two patents at issue concern low-noise toroidal thin film read/write heads that minimize magnetic interference. Such heads are important for current high-capacity drives; noise and interference become more important the tighter the storage density.

How much is this worth?

Both patents were filed back in 1997 by Uri Cohen, a California inventor who eventually launched his own investigations of Seagate and Western Digital drives. Convinced that the companies were using his work without compensation, Cohen found himself unable to secure licenses; he was also short of cash to fund a hugely expensive patent lawsuit in federal court. So he sold his patents to Rembrandt, which has the deep pockets needed to see the litigation through.

"We believe based on information that [Cohen] communicated and on our further investigations that there is infringement," Schneck explained to Ars, though Rembrandt did not approach either drive maker before filing the lawsuit.

The lawsuits were filed today in, of all places, Wisconsin's Western District, where Schneck says that Seagate has a facility.

"We're feeling very good about it," Schneck says, though we're sure the same can't be said by Western Digital and Seagate—or by the other drive manufacturers who could well be next in line if the patents prove lucrative.

Update: Schneck says that he was incorrect about Seagate having a facility in Wisconsin. Instead, Rembrandt sent along a statement about why they seek to litigate there: "Because the court is very experienced and sophisticated in patent litigation matters, and it manages cases efficiently and effectively, so that justice is not delayed. It also is a venue which is appropriately convenient given all of the facts regarding parties and witnesses."

Without wanting/being able to judge whether these patents and the claims based on them are valid, I have to say you know patent law needs reform when a bloody inventor has to simply give up looking after his awarded patents due to lack of funds.

Without wanting/being able to judge whether these patents and the claims based on them are valid, I have to say you know patent law needs reform when a bloody inventor has to simply give up looking after his awarded patents due to lack of funds.

I think this is a problem with law, not specifically patent law. Good luck taking on any large company in any civil suit by yourself.

It's just a shame WD and Seagate, if indeed they infringed on this guys patent, never paid up. It would go a fair way to marginalising patent trolls and making them easy to identify. If they didn't infringe, then I'm sure the lawyers will win this case and hopefully both companies come out the other side clean.

How much does it cost to file a civil lawsuit against these companies? What I mean is just file the claim, because I don't see how spending time on the case and using your brain is costing you money unless you are somehow dumb as shit, which the inventor clearly isn't.

How much does it cost to file a civil lawsuit against these companies? What I mean is just file the claim, because I don't see how spending time on the case and using your brain is costing you money unless you are somehow dumb as shit, which the inventor clearly isn't.

How much does it cost to file a civil lawsuit against these companies? What I mean is just file the claim, because I don't see how spending time on the case and using your brain is costing you money unless you are somehow dumb as shit, which the inventor clearly isn't.

I'd like a fuller story, on how this technology was nonexistant until this patent described it and somehow it ended up in the hands of Seagate and WD without being licensed. OR how it was developed simultaneously at several companies and the winner in the race to the patent office didn't get a big check for it. I don't buy the concept that Seagate *AND* WD read the patent, liked the idea, and risked lawsuits to use it with no payments...

A patent troll is a company/group/individual that owns a patent, but doesn't use it for any commercial purpose, besides litigation.

The fact that patent trolls ever have a case is what's wrong with patent law.

"Rembrandt IP Management is 'focused on attaining fair value for infringed patents,'" says it all. They seem to intentionally purchase patents with the intent to file lawsuits and they don't ever create anything of actual value. It's the equivalent of the teamsters saying that you've got to give them a kickpack if you want to use any cement in your construction.

What part of their use of patents fulfills the purpose of, "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts?"

"Rembrandt IP Management is 'focused on attaining fair value for infringed patents,'" says it all. They seem to intentionally purchase patents with the intent to file lawsuits and they don't ever create anything of actual value. It's the equivalent of the teamsters saying that you've got to give them a kickpack if you want to use any cement in your construction.

What part of their use of patents fulfills the purpose of, "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts?"

I think they serve a very useful purpose in this case, assuming it's a valid and non-obvious patent. The inventor didn't have the resources to sue the companies that (he thinks) are infringing, and so sold the rights to a company which did.

Would you rather a big company could just say "nah-nah, too bad, you can't afford to sue us"?

The guy may have come up with the idea for it and Seagate/WD are using his technology without proper license, but Seagate/WD actually made it better, so in the end, it's just ok.

[/apple_fanboy]

Did you accidentally reply to another article in the wrong thread or are you *really* trying to add your take on "Apple fanboys" to this discussion about hard drive manufacturers and patent infringements?

How much does it cost to file a civil lawsuit against these companies? What I mean is just file the claim, because I don't see how spending time on the case and using your brain is costing you money unless you are somehow dumb as shit, which the inventor clearly isn't.

You aint gettin' no cash from 'em courts without a right proper lawyertype to represent you

Sorry. But seriously - as the law works today you pretty much need a lawyer to fight big corporations. Sadly.

The intention of patents are to allow the original creator of the idea to go ahead and profit from it, without other companies stealing his profit. The definition of creator, in the case of patent law, should be extended to mean actually attempting to produce the patent commercially. Like trademark protection requires the TM to be actively used in order to have protection, so should patents.

When patent trolls start taking on established industries in this way, it hurts the consumers. Patent law was partly established in order to protect consumers from cheap ripoff's. It's always about the consumers and we're getting shafted in this generation.

It's just a shame WD and Seagate, if indeed they infringed on this guys patent, never paid up.

They may not have known his patents even existed. Many tech companies explicitly do not look, because they know that patents will be infringed (due to independently "inventing" the patented "invention") and by not looking they don't get hit with treble damages for willful infringement. Never mind the costs of searching for patents you MIGHT infringe upon.

I think they serve a very useful purpose in this case, assuming it's a valid and non-obvious patent. The inventor didn't have the resources to sue the companies that (he thinks) are infringing, and so sold the rights to a company which did.

Would you rather a big company could just say "nah-nah, too bad, you can't afford to sue us"?

So are you saying that it's okay for one big company to buy up patents from poor inventors for chump change and use them to sue other big companies for their own profit instead? How does that promote the progress? The inventor might think twice about inventing if his incentive to invent is perverted into only making large sums of money for big companies who can afford to sue.

Sad, small inventor creates something that's in tons of hard drives but can't put together the cash to fight for the royalties he deserves.

So he has to sell the patents to an IP house.

Makes me think that the US Federal government should supply inventors with free council in disputes.

Of course you somehow know that neither WD or Seagate have similar patents themselves?? Didn't think so. Thats another problem with the patent system, there are lots of overlapping patents because the patent office seems to give everyone a patent on anything, without really researching if the idea was already patented.

Remind me why this patent troll hasn't filed suit against Hitachi or Fujitsu... (or any other hard drive manufacturer) They also make high-capacity drives 500GB+

Plus, the only patent that is still valid is the one from 2001, the 1997 one has already expired.

Even then, a person cannot patent an idea, how many times do we have to go over this?? (trolls) The original intent was for an inventor to patent his invention and the ideas behind it. Key word is invention, can't file a patent if you don't have the proof you created it.

And... what makes this guy so sure that WD and Seagate are using his methods for noise filtering? What if they are using a different algorithms on the logic board to assist the read/write head in noise reduction.

I'm curious as to how the "Patent Holder" can't afford to buy a couple drive and take them apart to look? If he has the means to create this, I would think that he should have the means to see if somebody else is using it.

Of course, if he never actually built it and tested it, then we have another thing that's wrong with our patent system.

I'm also curious as why Seagate wouldn't have bought this instead of a bunch of lawyers?

This small-time inventor would have made some money by selling his invention to these big hard drive manufacturers but instead they copied his idea, said "screw you" and kicked him out on the street without a penny. Now he doesn't even have the money to fight back.

This small-time inventor would have made some money by selling his invention to these big hard drive manufacturers but instead they copied his idea, said "screw you" and kicked him out on the street without a penny. Now he doesn't even have the money to fight back.

Citation needed, since the article doesn't elaborate on how Seagate and WD came to use this technology. Your narrative would be much less compelling if, say, Seagate and WD had poured their own money into in-house research but this guy got to the patent office first. And/or if it was the next, obvious step to increase capacity. I'm withholding judgment until we know more.

In defense of the inventor, he created a Company 'Torohead' that he assigned the patent rights to. It's no longer in business, but at the time it was in business it filed for trademarks, and based on the googling I've done was in the business of "VERY LOW RELUCTANCE, THIN FILM MAGNETIC READING AND WRITING HEADS FOR SALE TO OEM MANUFACTURERS OF HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTER DISK DRIVES."

So the guy DID at least as far as I can tell, go into business, and TRY to sell his drive heads to the OEM's. They apparently didn't buy.. if they outright copied, or just parallel invented etc we don't know.. but it would appear from the info we have so far, this guy invented something, applied for a patent, created a company, got awarded a patent, and tried to market the invention to appropriate buyers who appear to have chosen to violate his patent instead of purchasing his product or rights to the invention.

The outfit he sold to does appear to have all the hallmarks of patent trolls, but in this case we may be seeing an instance of where said trolls are a beneficial part of the patent ecosystem, providing a means for an inventor who's patents have been infringed to get at least SOME return on their work (we've no idea how reasonably they compensated him) where lacking the means to press a suit with a large well funded legal dept they would have instead gotten nothing.

One would hope that the inventor was at least able to negotiate for some share of proceeds if the infringement case goes through. It would be very sad to discover that presuming there is a finding, and an award, the original inventor's compensation amounted to a very tiny percentage of that amount.. (which would tend to make us view the toll as far more of a parasite than a symbiont)

His patent was so good, he couldn't even find a shyster lawyer to take the case on contingency?

Yeah, because shyster lawyers love taking up cases they don't understand based on a story they can't verify, competing against dozens of connected, first tier patent lawyers, for the chance of someday, years from now, earning a paycheck they can't estimate.

It sounds to me that while Cohen was unable to convince any hard drive manufacturers that they had violated his patents, he had much better luck with Rembrandt IP in convincing them to buy his patents expressly so that they could get filthy rich from just such a lawsuit....

The question that is begged here is precisely what correspondence Cohen had with hard drive makers, what their responses have been, and of course whether or not the hard drive makers can show prior art to Cohen's patents, assuming those patents even loosely apply to their current hard-drive technologies, thus invalidating Cohen's patents altogether. My gut tells me that Rembrandt IP will be the one left holding the bag, here--and that Cohen successfully sold concepts to Rembrandt that he was unable to sell to any hard-drive maker on earth, apparently.

I can't help but think that if the drive makers believed he had a point they'd have made him an offer themselves to simply buy up his patents, and if they did make such an offer it strikes me it would at minimum had to have been a multiple of what Rembrandt paid him. That the drive makers don't already own these patents through such a sale from Cohen indicates to me that none of the drive makers sees any merit in Cohen's allegations, and thus no offers were apparently made.

Sad, small inventor creates something that's in tons of hard drives but can't put together the cash to fight for the royalties he deserves.

So he has to sell the patents to an IP house.

Makes me think that the US Federal government should supply inventors with free council in disputes.

Of course you somehow know that neither WD or Seagate have similar patents themselves?? Didn't think so. Thats another problem with the patent system, there are lots of overlapping patents because the patent office seems to give everyone a patent on anything, without really researching if the idea was already patented.

So why the fuck shouldn't it be heard by an unbiased court, and appealed as necessary? You don't know either, and common sense seems in short supply to boot.

His patent was so good, he couldn't even find a shyster lawyer to take the case on contingency?

Not even a shot, if he expects some sort of success in the end. Either the lawyer fucks up, or he takes a large chunk, or the other companies build a work about or that they keep delaying the hearings until his inventions simply no longer apply ....

He is far better off to sell it if he can than try to fight it in court for the massive, massive costs involved. If all he has is a quarter of a million dollars for his legal battle, he may as well not both showing up since he will be entirely outgunned.

what is wrong with the system is that a company like rembrandt can purchase the IP from the inventor, and then turn around and be awarded one red cent more than they paid for it in "infringing damages"

seems like the market value has been established for this particular IP by the inventor already, no?

1) he invented and patented something that WD and/or Seagate stole.2) he invented and patented something that WD and/or Seagate unwittingly infringed on.3) he invented and patented something that WD and/or Seagate already had prior art for, thus the patent is invalid, and Rembrandt doesn't have a case.

It seems odd that Ars reports he sold his patents to Rembrandt, given they state:"Individual Inventors: We work with individual inventors who lack intellectual property litigation expertise and/or the capital resources required to enforce their patent rights. Rembrandt IP Management then structures a deal tailored to each circumstance, whereby it contributes considerable internal resources and expertise as well as the financial capital needed to pursue enforcement through litigation."

Even a poor deal where he gets, say, 25% of the cash of the settlement should 1 or 2 be correct would surely be more valuable than selling the patent rights, though I suppose he could be desperate for cash now?